Sydney University is leading a research collaboration that inverts the familiar approach to astronomy: instead of more powerful telescopes looking at smaller parts of the sky, CAASTRO (Centre for All-sky Astrophysics) will be concentrating on whole-of-sky astronomy.

Hackers sponsored by the Chinese government and other nations are collaborating with profit-driven malware gangs to infiltrate corporate networks storing government secrets and other sensitive data, researchers say.

The Roomba is the most widely known of the robot cleaners, and with competition mounting, the company, iRobot, has not been sitting on its laurels. The Roomba 780 is the latest model, and boasts a larger collecting bin, built in scheduling and HEPA filters.

There’s quiet satisfaction across large parts of the music industry as Europe formally extends the copyright term on sound recordings from 50 to 70 years. The music business fought off a rearguard action from Pirate Party MEP Christian Engstrom – whose raging against the corruption of the European Parliament may have eased the passage of the controversial measure. Not everyone loves a Pirate.

Germany's consumer protection minister Ilse Aigner is once again calling on her peers to ditch the use of Facebook by government officials, citing what she believes are valid "justified legal doubts" raised about the social network.

With so many connected devices now carrying a DLNA or UPnP sticker, shunting media from or through your phone – to a Wi-Fi enabled music player, telly or gaming console – is fast becoming an everyday requirement.

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) plans to get 80 per cent of Jobseeker's Allowance claimants transacting online by September 2013, but has no clear plan of how to achieve this, says the public accounts committee.

Sweaty locals and voodoo always remind me of Angel Heart and I was as confused as Mickey Rourke after watching Dead Island's appalling intro. Seriously, who says "git" these days? Must be all those red pills and JD. This may explain the reverse time trailer I saw a few months back, which mislead me into thinking there might be some semblance of a plot to get to grips with here.

Nintendo is touting an attachment to the 3DS, which plonks an additional slide pad to the right of the button set and readies the handheld machine for dual-stick gaming action. This extra functionality puts it on a par with more conventional console controllers.

We all know why Facebook has such astronomical valuations. It is already as ubiquitous as Tesco. It is a place a billion people go to: whereas they only ever leave Google search, to go somewhere else. But people hanging around, poking, throwing cows, ignoring the adverts and goofing around doesn’t pay the rent. To increase revenue, Facebook needs to sell more stuff: products and services.

The founder of Stagecoach is accusing Google of censoring him by dumping his personal website from their search engine results. Sir Brian Souter is a Scottish businessman who controversially funded a campaign in 2000 to keep the anti-gay legislation of Section 28 in the Local Government and Finance Act.

The overclocking scamps of "Team AMD FX" are celebrating the Intel Developer Forum's opening day in their own special way: by accepting a fastest-chip-ever award at an event a mere block away from Intel's geekfest.

In August the government said it wouldn't implement the Digital Economy Act's web-blocking powers. But it still thinks pirate websites hurt British business and wants something to make accessing them more more difficult, and to make sanctions against them less expensive.

Belgium could be the second European country after the Netherlands to adopt net neutrality for both fixed and mobile networks. Three political parties have joined forces to launch a proposed law (in Dutch), which they hope will be approved early next year.

Food and heat-resistant tiles once destined for orbit will soon end up in the grubby little hands of schoolchildren, in a scheme aimed at inspiring a future generation of astronauts and space engineers.

Intel may be keen for World+Dog to buy an Ultrabook this Christmas - it's "working with industry partners to deliver mainstream-priced products beginning this holiday season" - but smart buyers may choose to wait until 2012.

VoltDB – the new-age database outfit founded by industry high priest Mike Stonebraker – has unveiled version 2.0 of its flagship distributed database, offering new logging tools designed to protect users from catastrophic system failures.

Intel claims that platforms built around its Haswell microarchitecture – the successor to the today's Sandy Bridge, scheduled for 2013 – will use one-twentieth the power of today's stingiest low-power platforms.

The national president of the Health Services Union (HSU), Michael Williamson, is at the centre of a New South Wales police investigation over allegations of secret commissions and serious conflicts of interest.